The Complete Flower Paintings and Drawings of Graham Stuart Thomas

This beautiful book contains the work of Graham Stuart Thomas, an exceptionally talented man. He was a gardener, a garden designer, artist and author.

He was born in Cambridge but started his gardening career in Stevenage at the Six Hills Nursery.

After he left school he studied at The Cambridge University Botanic Garden. Some of his work there was quite run of the mill weeding and preparing seeds for distribution but it also gave him the opportunity to grow plants from seeds which he been brought back from plant hunting expeditions.

In the 1930s Graham Stuart Thomas had the chance to meet one of his idols, Gertrude Jekyll. He had moved to Hillingdon Nursery at Woking and used to visit her garden at Munstead Wood where she would discuss her plants and the reasoning behind the way she had planted them.

It was around this time he became very interested in roses. He began collecting ones which were in danger of extinction. He also began to work on a part time basis for the National Trust eventually becoming a very trusted and revered consultant. He worked with them for over 20 years and helped design some of their most amazing gardens. He was particularly proud of the work he did at Mottisfort.

After Hillingdon he became a partner at Sunningdale Nurseries where he worked with Jim Russell designing gardens creating different textures using not just the colours & height of plants but their shapes and foliage too.

He died in 2003 aged 94. It seems incredible that this lifelong love of plants and gardening came from being given a Fuchsia as a gift at the age of 6.

I adored Alison Uttley books as a child, little Grey Rabbit stories like this one, Sam Pig tales and her books aimed at older Children like a traveller in time. In this story Hare is trying to solve the problem of buying friends Easter Eggs.It is a new copy at £5.99